Earth and Heaven
by Ioga
Summary: One autumn night, Neji appears before Hinata, intent on to overthrowing the head family.  This fic departs from canon some time before the chuunin exams, timed a few years after it.


Author's note: all named characters are borrowed from Naruto, with some modifications of course.

* * *

In a serene Eastern yard surrounded by some low buildings, I stand near the gate that welcomes visitors of the Hyuuga clan. The autumn leaves are a wild show of colour; the night is slowly turning to morning. I watch over the estate where my father, sister and many more distant relatives sleep calmly. My father has been ill lately, and is now bedridden. I send out a quiet wish that he recover from what must be a disease of the mind quickly spreading to his body.

My lonely meditations are interrupted tonight. My cousin Neji walks in through the gate, sombre and serious as is usual of him. If I did not have memories of times long ago, I would think him to have been born serious. He never laughs, never cries, never shows anger even when I know he must feel it. It is integral for his survival not to show his emotions.

I am a member of the head branch of the family, he is a genius member of the side branch. Side branches have long been enslaved and held down by my own branch, and even though we share half our grandparents, he is forever cursed by the fate of those not of the head branch. I know he is my better, by all measures but that. He knows it as well. If only his father had been born moments earlier as the elder of the twins, things would be quite different.

Things might still become different. I have a nagging feeling that change is afoot tonight. He steps forward, and I know that my worry is not misplaced. The division between branches is finally going to boil over, right now. The wind rustles the autumn leaves, and there's a loud whisper of revolution carried on its fast-moving tail.

I should not be surprised. The revolution would have been rather more predictable if someone bothered to take a long hard look in the eyes of this young man. But many family members have long avoided looking him in the eye; I suspect his skill and ambition are at least a part of the cause. His eyes also carry the power of our clan, and you cannot avoid noticing that power if you let yourself be caught in that gaze. It would be safest not to look, for your own peace of mind.

As it stands, my family and most of the guards are asleep. Usually, there is not all that much to fear, especially from people within the clan. There is a way to control the members of the side branch. A curse, set on them by our ancestors, is renewed by every generation when the head branch heir turns three. I am slightly younger than him, and he has been like an older brother to me. I feared for him when it was his turn to receive the cursed seal now etched on his forehead. I wanted to take his place; he did not deserve such pain. The curse of the side branch of the family built a stone wall between us and nothing was ever the same after that day.

"Hinata-sama." He is close enough that the light from nearby oil lamps allows me to see the grim determination in his eyes, considerably more visible than it ever was before when he knew someone like me was watching.

"Neji-san. It seems there is a storm coming." A part of me would like to scream and beg and plead that he stop this madness, but that is not the way. And I play by the unwritten rules. The only abnormality I allow myself is the distantly respectful addition to his name. It would seem odd to call him "older brother" in this situation, as it would maybe seem like an attempt to gain his sympathy. But I can bend the rules by attaching a stiff honorific to his name, almost returning his show of ritual submission by calling me Hinata-sama. How he must hate the show of inferiority.

"So you've noticed. I ask you to step down, then. Don't make this hard on yourself." His steely eyes, unnaturally pale white just like mine, finish the thought of what the hard way would be. But I know there is no turning away from that fate.

"It brings me no pleasure to stand in your way, Neji-san." I put some additional weight on that small difference. It is not as respectful as 'sama', which he has always been required to use when referring to my family members, but he might consider anything more a mockery. "We both know that there are duties which cannot be stepped away from." Also, I add to myself, should he fail to bring us down, his fate would be dreadful. I am not waking everybody up with a warning, not yet, maybe not before it is too late. Not as long as there is a remote chance that he will snap out of this and be my cousin, my older brother again. I cannot let others come take away that chance.

"I won't go easy on you." His eyes are fixed on mine, his expression grim.

I face the stare, withdrawing to the cold logic of an outside observer to calm down the storm in my mind. "I know. Should you succeed, any one of us left alive would be a threat, able to bring you back down." Which is why the curse was considered so absolutely necessary: to make sure rebelling would be a sure way to doom. It would be impossible to kill the entire family before anyone had a chance to react. I fiddle with the thought of disabling him with the curse. If I do not, I stand no chance against him. Why am I not waking up the guards, my father or younger sister? Where are my loyalties?

He exhales in a way which an optimist could consider a sigh. "Very well." He takes a step back, and his posture changes. He forms the seals with his hands and focuses his Byakugan, the hereditary power we both possess. But he does not seem like he were about to attack immediately, so I do not yet mimic his moves to wield my own powers.

"Your reluctance to fight is obvious, but it will not spare you. Why fight against your will in the name of duty when you know yourself what's right?" He can see right through people with those eyes. It is one of the reasons our clan is so powerful. Even too powerful for its own good, I dare believe.

Maybe if only we did not have a power like that, there would be no need to control members of our own family like we do now. It would be nice to be a member of a lesser clan, one that only has a little to be proud of but nothing like this to be ashamed of either. Our Byakugan is a trump card which many of the enemies of the village are after, and the curse which gives my family total control over the branch families also binds the ability, protects it from being stolen. The power is bound to our bloodline.

He cannot play mind games with me today. He has always been very good at hiding his feelings from the threatening eyes of the outside world, but when he finally shows his real face, it makes me feel as if by opposing him to protect my father and little sister, I could protect him too, protect those things he respects.

I guess, then, that there is no use in spending more words. I form the seals, more slowly and with more care than he ever needs to take, and refocus my eyes. I immediately see the world more clearly, and looking at him, I become aware of where his weak spots are. There's a shining beacon of a target right on his forehead, one which he will not see on me. It would only take a few movements to form the secret seal to bring him down on his knees in unendurable pain, or even to kill him. I should form that seal if I am at all serious about fulfilling my duties. On the other hand, I should also be alerting the household, and should have done so a long time ago.

A moment of hesitation is all he really needs. He lunges at me, and suddenly all my concentration is required on defending myself. He uses our family's hand-to-hand combat style, Jyuuken. The technique may seem inefficient on the surface, but it does its damage on the inside. I counter his barrage of strikes and try to get an attack of my own in. There is no time to form seals any more; I am already fighting for my life.

I should shout for help. It would be too late to save me, but it would stop this insanity eventually. Neji would be crippled by the combined power of the household, with probably his own close relatives forced against the wilful, doomed young man. With his skill, Neji could probably take a few people down with him before someone activated the controlling curse. However, he would not stand a chance at killing my father if he were forewarned. I should shout, but now I am pulled too far into the flow of the battle to think of consequences.

Then, suddenly, I see an opening. There is no time for philosophy in the middle of a fight; I seize the opportunity even before I consciously become aware of it. I hit Neji straight in the chest, a blow which might end up killing him. The movement takes me within his reach, and he manages a counter-blow which makes my heart miss a few beats. I pull back to cough out some blood and see how he fares. His head is bowed. He clutches his chest with one hand, with the other hanging limply on his side.

I feel a sting of remorse that the world should be so unfair, and form the secret seal to pull him under control for good. But as I finish the seal and activate his curse, the remorse becomes unbearable. It does not feel right to let it end this way, betray him to Father, his uncle. "Neji-san," I manage to cough out hoarsely, "maybe no one needs to know..." I might have a hard time explaining away why my insides are so shaken up, why my chest only manages to draw in small gasps of air, but I am determined to cover this up one way or the other. He could disappear instead of being killed. There is a world full of possibility that we have missed until now; there has to be a way out.

It slowly dawns on me that he did not react at all to my hand seals of control, even though his brain should be in fire by now. Is he so close to death that his nerves have stopped working? I take a step closer to catch him in case he is about to topple over, when his hand suddenly comes up and pulls my sleeve back. It is a very determined hand, my confused mind registers, not one to be found attached to people who are so close to death they cannot even feel pain any more.

My accursed, almost all-seeing eyes turn to my arm for a brief sideways glance. I draw in breath through my teeth as the horrible truth dawns on me. Neji lifts his head to look me straight in the eye with his own pale eyes, which are considerably more frightening when seen through the Byakugan technique. He knows I know what the red spots all over my arm mean.

While we fought, he must have seared all the points in my body which can channel out chakra, the carrier of our power. Such charring would mean he would have hit them exactly with his Jyuuken to violently channel his own chakra into them. The feat would be difficult to any of us - and impossible to anyone outside the family, anyone without the Byakugan feat. But it is the only possible explanation to why he has not collapsed by now.

Coming to think of it, I note to myself that I do feel kind of odd. So this is what it feels like to be completely out of touch with your powers. My seals refuse to work because without the tiniest trickle of chakra to channel, I am no different from a child making random finger movements. My seals did not call forth horrible spells of control, they did not call forth anything. In addition, my chest is constricting in a way that makes even whispers difficult, while shouting is purely impossible. This can be no coincidence. I seriously suspect he did not waste a single hit when bringing me to this completely helpless state. Such eternal striving for perfection would be quite typical of him.

He is prepared for a blow to finish me off, but it does not land. Not quite yet. "Step down, Hinata-sama," he commands in a low voice that demands immediate obedience. "Your fight is over."

My sadness over evil fates is dissipating into a feeling of peace. Neji can pull it off: he can surprise my father, who is bedridden with his illness, he can bring down the entire head branch tonight, and finally free his own family to rule over our clan. Maybe things will be different after that. Maybe not. At least I have no reason to feel bad for him any more. He got back at us for what we have done to him and his father before him. I smile a sad smile at him. "A new wind is blowing, Neji-san. May it bring a better season." With that, I drop back to a fighting stance. I cannot debilitate him on the inside with Byakugan-strengthened blows, but our hand-to-hand combat tradition is not completely useless for dealing more superficial damage either. I have no reason to stop here.

He blinks, so surprised at my final defiance that his usually perfect control over his facial expressions momentarily fails. Although most others probably would have missed the very brief lapse, my Byakugan-focused eyes catch almost everything. Although the additional clarity might wear off any time now and I would not be able to regain it without my seals, I will make the most out of it. I begin a final round of blows, with speed which might even make Father proud, although he would never admit it even if he were to see it. For a moment Neji just keeps blocking the blows, as if he needed the time to think. Then he regains his determination, counters hits from both my hands hard enough to strike them aside and takes the chance to hit me straight in the chest. My heart fibrillates, then stops. I fall to my knees, then topple down on my face. It's the blow to finish off an enemy, the one what we are taught to use when it is time to learn to kill.

"It is over." Was there a hint of remorse in his voice? I might have imagined it, as my consciousness fades. Never trust your ears when you are dying. We could have been taught that as well, it sounds so sensible it would have been just the thing to bring up in a lesson.

He kneels over my soon-to-be-corpse to take my keys. I carry a knife, like a good warrior; he takes that too. I distantly imagine him slicing open Father's throat as a thanks for the sigil burned to his forehead, the death of his own father and all our other crimes. He takes off towards the sleeping quarters. I fall into the pleasant flow towards complete blackness; I am already beyond pain.

Some say that there is no rest for the wicked. I am not completely sure whether I really fall into that category, but my body seems to have taken to some of my earlier stubbornness, and does not let me fade away in peace. My heart groans like a wounded animal, or maybe that is just my imagination. In any case, it starts beating again. Only it beats all too fast and out of synch. It is trashing, trying to get out through my ribs.

I feel like I could hear my father's heart stopping as his blood flows from him, painting the tatami-covered floor red. My little sister, half-immobilized from an accident a year ago, does not stand a chance against the god of vengeance that has taken temporary residence in my cousin. My cousin, the one who was almost like an older brother to me. My heart seems to draw fury from the deaths of my kin, deaths which I can only imagine since I am lying face-down on the cool ground. My soul is prepared to go with them, but my body screams defiance at the face of oblivion and kicks away the cold embrace of death.

Someone approaches, and I let out a barely audible moan, against my better judgement. It is Neji. He turns me around and shakes me slightly. "Hinata-sama, you're alive?" Still that 'sama' silliness. I would tell him I consider it quite unnecessary at the moment, but my body has a mind of its own now. I am reduced to a watcher, trapped into my stubborn, broken body that is no longer under my command. Oh well, at least I will not need to get up to fight him now, no matter what duty says. I amj not certain what duty would say of the situation anyway, since his deed is done. There is no one left to save now.

He is picking me up. He must notice how cold my skin is, I'm not sure myself if my arms and legs are even still attached to my body. He is carrying me somewhere, saying that the fight is over, that if I hang in there we will not have to fight ever again. He almost sounds like he means it. I cannot bring myself to ponder the meaning of this, but the idea sounds nice. No more fighting...

oOOo

Neji carries his unconscious cousin and runs as fast as he can. He brings her to a healer woman who lives outside of town. First and foremost, the crone can be trusted to be extremely discreet. He shouts for her.

The old woman is woken up by the yell. She comes out a moment later, looking ready for anything. "Neji-kun, is something wrong?" She sees the girl and directs him indoors to a guest room.

He lowers Hinata on the bed. "I need you to take care of Hinata-sama, obaasan. Don't mention to anyone that she's here; just send me word if she wakes up or if she won't."

The crone checks the girl over. "Ich. She is in bad shape, I'll have to get started right now." With that, the woman seems to fall into a trance, calling forth her powers of healing.

There is nothing more he can do right now. Neji turns to leave, slightly boggled at himself and pondering where this momentary indecision came from. He has eliminated Hinata's father and her crippled sister; bringing her to a healer afterwards creates problems he had almost solved already.

He walks back to the Hyuuga clan residence, taking the time to think. Hinata's father, Hiashi-sama, was the head of the clan. There is little love lost between branch families and members of the head family; one family rules over the others through the ultimate fear of death instilled into the others. The cursed seal Neji himself has had on his forehead since the age of four can be activated to light a fiery pain inside the bearer's skull or to kill him, depending on the amount of power channelled through it. The gestures to activate the seal are passed on in the head family. Hinata knows them, and so did her younger sister.

The seal has not been used against Neji this far; Hinata was the first to even try. However, he saw it used on his father, who was poor at hiding his anger towards the injustice of the head family. It was a valuable lesson for Neji; he learned to bury his own feelings behind a more acceptable feeling he discovered: ambition, the will to become so powerful he would not lose to anyone.

Ambition worked well for him. He surpassed even Hinata's father in skill some time after his own father died in Hiashi-sama's place to protect the village from a war. Neji cursed the head family for killing his father and turned it into strength to look for more power, train ever harder. It turned out later that his father had chosen death, the only thing he could do at his own will. Neji's bitterness ceded, but his ambition grew only stronger. It did not falter when Hiashi-sama went as far as apologize for Neji's loss. Neji noticed then that he was like the strong son Hiashi-sama never had; the head of the Hyuuga clan was always deeply dissatisfied with anything his eldest daughter, Hinata, could do.

The setting was fine enough for Neji; he was basically taken under the wing of Hiashi-sama and something remotely resembling a bond formed between them. However, it was obvious that Hiashi-sama was first and foremost hoping his younger daughter would take to Neji instead of Hinata, and become his true successor. It violated the age-old tradition of the eldest child inheriting the mantle of the head family, the same tradition which won Hiashi-sama the head family over his twin brother,

Hizashi. Hiashi-sama was adamant that the weakling he considered Hinata had no place in the head family. Instead of the traditional protective direction set for eldest children, she was allowed to take combat training and enter into dangerous missions. Her father silently hoped she would not return one day.

A year ago, Hinata's mother and little sister were caught in a fire. The mother died; the sister lost both her legs and was doomed to life as a cripple. Young minds may find ways to cope with such a sudden loss of ability, but her father took it very badly. His hopes of a worthy heir were crushed; he blamed himself and the gods for being cursed to bad luck.

The next day, Neji had just returned from a long mission to find Hinata training, beating her fists against a wooden training dummy until her hands bled. It was not the first time she did that, it was just that she was very serious about training. However, her posture was somehow much more desperate than usual. When he asked her about it, she just slumped down and got very silent. Eventually he found out what had happened. Neji looked for and found the necessary strand of compassion to mourn for the head family's loss. He did not yet know that there would be more mourning to do before the dust settled.

Hiashi-sama did not show any signs of recovery from the tragedy; his mind turned inwards and its wounds festered. He decided that with his line so weakened, Neji and his late father were both celebrating the turn of events and calling him inferior. He had recurring nightmares of branch families rising up against him. He probably would have soon started passing the blame for the accidental fire that burned away his dreams, when he himself was bedridden with an illness. The patriarch's body, neglected for months already, could not support the will of the torn soul any longer.

Despite his conviction of Neji being the reason for all his suffering, Hiashi-sama had enough sense of strategy to not kill his nephew outright. Instead, he tried to send Neji to the most dangerous missions available, to have him die far from home. Neji disappointed him time after time by returning alive; while he was not strong enough to beat everyone on his path quite yet, he was strong enough to stay alive rather successfully. During these missions, Neji had time to analyze the situation and come up with a plan which could set him free of the reborn tyranny. It was a mockery of fate that the despotic misuse of power that he had earlier cursed the head family for had not in reality surfaced before this time, and that realization finally brought about Neji's rebellion.

There was no option but to put an end to the head family. They would not hesitate for a moment to use the cursed seal on his head to bring him down if even one was given the chance. He would have to strike when they least expected it. At night, they would be asleep, but guarded. The seal provided near absolute loyalty; no branch family member would risk their neck for him, not when the patriarch might be unstable enough to wipe out an entire branch for trying to raise their hand against his family.

The perfect timing had dawned on him when he observed the family members during the brief periods he wasn't on potentially lethal missions. Hinata was weak; her fighting skills were not bad but she was unsure and hesitant, almost as if there was a knot within her. She would always stumble over her own thoughts and feelings, as if they were too complicated for her. No doubt her strict father's endless displeasure with whatever she tried had further diluted her naturally weak resolve.

She feared Neji, in a way, but it was probably her desperate need for acceptance from anyone that made her try to win the friendship of her cousin time and again. Yes, he would wait until it was her turn to stand watch, and she would hesitate at a critical moment. He would strike her down with a well-placed Jyuuken hit before she had time to form the seal to stop him. Quickly and quietly. Her bedridden sister would fall in her sleep; but the patriarch would require extreme care. Hiashi-sama would not hesitate for a moment to kill his nephew, should he suspect anything.

Back in the woods, Neji grimaces at the memory. To his surprise, the patriarch had been reduced to a madman. Neji had been certain his plan had failed when the patriarch had sat up with his eyes wide open as Neji was still some steps away. However, Hiashi-sama had only raved something insensible, talking to himself, and had not even noticed Neji before he cut his throat and held his arms down, just in case, until the death throes stopped.

It is almost dawn when he reaches the clan houses. He does some minor final adjustments to cover his tracks; some clan members would understand, with certainty, what had happened, but could possibly be persuaded to stand behind him all the same. Hiashi-sama had not been very highly esteemed, especially of late. In the end, it was the same way the head family had originally gained ultimate power in the clan: by conquest. Of course, Neji's position, as the closest relative of the late patriarch of the ones that were not either dead or assumed dead, would bring him the responsibility of taking over in the clan. This seems like a convenient position to be in, even though his ambitions have not been for that particular kind of power. He still prefers being simply undefeatable, and this has turned out to be a necessary step towards that goal.

By morning, the deaths are noted and the blood on the yard gives strength to the assumption Hinata is dead as well. The heads of side branches, including Neji as the sole representative of his own branch, gather to meet.

The atmosphere is strangely relieved and tense at the same time. The patriarch's madness had put the whole clan under a constant fear of torture or death, but it has not quite passed as Hinata's death is not completely ascertained. More importantly, there is an uncertainty about the clan's future. It may be that no more children will have to bear the cursed seal, but what if the clan's power fell into the wrong hands through members whose ability remained unsealed?

Routine decisions concerning the clan have already been made in practice by branch families, so as Neji does not suggest to do anything to change the regular life of the clan, he is granted the symbolic position of power by family ties for now. A few days later, the clan elders will meet again to determine the fate of the clan and, although it is not said aloud by those who know it, Neji's.

oOOo

I am just having a strange dream of my own funeral when I suddenly wake up to my own soundless scream. I am in a strange room. The sheets are tangled around me and I hurt everywhere. I marvel at how my bed has gotten so messed up when I am really feeling rather immobile. I can barely lift an arm to see that it is full of reddish, bruise-like spots that itch enough to make me mad to not be able to scratch them. I slowly remember how they got that way, and get so overwhelmed by the memory that I black out.

When I wake up again, I think I feel a bit better, although I am not ready to trust my memory on anything yet. Someone has wrapped my arms and chest in some soothing bandages. I still do not feel like moving a muscle. As the sleepy fuzziness in my head clears, I suddenly realize I am not alone.

Neji is standing by the opposite wall, leaning against it and watching my every move. My eyes widen in sudden terror; I try to swallow away the sudden knot that has formed in my throat, but my mouth is too dry. I do not know how I have made it to a healer, but if he has found me, it has been all for nothing. Any head family member left alive would simply be too much a threat for him to be allowed to remain that way.

I cannot move, I am still too weak. Despite this I must have been squirming so visibly, trying to figure a way out of the situation, that Neji seems to decide I am aware of my surroundings. He walks to the foot of my bed. I struggle to keep calm, to not black out from fear. It is almost funny: I was so ready to die on that night that when it has been denied me, the only thing I have left is a sudden urge to survive. One always craves for the wrong things, the rewards that cannot be had.

He breaks the oppressing silence. "Your fear is unnecessary." As I blink at his comment, he continues, pointing at my arm. "I am unsure with what to do with you once you can move those hands of yours again, but for now I'm settled to wait."

It seems to make sense, yet does not. It only frustrates me out of my wits. Tasting for words after a long silence, I reply. "It is not like you... to fail to finish... something you've started, nii-san." My voice is all croaky, and my tongue thick in my mouth. I guess I am remotely understandable, anyway.

Neji is not baited; he somehow manages to remain infuriatingly calm in the middle of any kind of raging storm, as if he knew it would cease at the next moment. "I did kill you. I saw your heart stop." He suddenly looks vaguely amused, almost smiles. "You were just too stubborn to stay dead, cousin."

It sends a chill down my spine. He looks at me like a predator toying with his prey. My heart is beating so loudly he must hear it as well. The fear alone is strong enough to immobilize even if I my body were not broken and useless already. The feelings of helplessness, frustration and terror mix into something I do not even recognize at first: hate. I hate Neji for first putting me into this helpless state and then coming to gloat about it to me when I cannot do anything to stop it, cannot... hide.

I guess that is what I usually would do, as embarrassing as admitting it feels. I hate him for doing this when I cannot evade it, and when he obviously stands nothing to gain from it but my discomfort. My eyes darken with it, and I clench, painful as it is, my right hand into a semblance of a fist. I have dealt with humiliation many times in my life, but right now I recognize that this is simply wrong of him.

Neji frowns; it seems that he did not fully expect this reaction. I find myself signing this off as a petty victory: maybe he has something yet to learn about me, with all his insight and always seeing through people. It does not win me a brighter future, however.

"If you are itching to use the powers of the head family against me, cousin, I may have to do something drastic. You would find it hard to activate the cursed seal with no hands, I think." His voice is cold, but the reluctance in his eyes does not support the message. He must be back in control of his facial expressions again, so I take it he really means the words as a warning he hopes me to heed instead of an anticipation of something he would not mind doing.

Why does he always succeed in confusing me so?

I unclench my futile fist and close my eyes to gather my thoughts. The storm that was gathering now dissipates, and the tentative atmosphere returns into the room. When I have gathered enough strength of mind, I open my eyes only to find him gone. He is not far, I can hear him talking in a low voice to someone. The way my entire broken body is still burning from useless battle-readiness, I can hear them as if they were in the same room.

"I need to know first hand when she has healed enough to start moving." The hushed voices make it hard to be sure, but I imagine he slips from matter-of-factness into something I cannot quite pinpoint in his tone. There is no answering voice, but there must have been a nod, since he continues. "Whatever happens, make sure she does not leave this building. For her own safety." I see, he has not let the people here in on the whole situation! Even though I am not feeling at all like trying my skills in manipulation against these people, I store the information as a possible tool in driving a wedge between between my host and Neji. After all, a little moral discomfort is a small price to pay for survival.

I must have fallen asleep to my wild calculations of how many guards and other people there might be. When I wake up again, it is early morning. Someone is in the room, but the presence is considerably more soothing than Neji's was. After a moment of furious thought I recognize the old woman rearranging my sheets to be the hermit healer living well outside the village. This means getting away is hard, but also that if there are probably only guards here besides her, since she lives alone. Come to think of it, she might not even tolerate guards to hang around.

The old woman smiles when I turn to look at her. "You have a strong heart, my dear. I was worried you might not wake up at all, but look at you, even your fever is already going down." She's so friendly it badly tempts me to just break down and cry. But now is not the time to lose myself.

"I... wasn't expecting to wake up myself, to be honest." I remember most of our fight, the moment of realizing that all was lost, but not much after that. Somewhere along the way, I just followed what seemed to be fate.

"These are no practice fight marks." It is a statement of fact, and I wonder how much farther she has thought this over. For some strange reason, I am loathe to tell her what has happened; I feel as if it should be the private shame of our family. After all, it was self-defence, in the end.

She seems unperturbed by my silence and waits me out. Eventually, I feel silly enough by being quiet about it that, just to say something, I reply with the obvious: "No, they aren't." I then suddenly wonder if it is safe to tell the healer woman. Maybe Neji has not planned for her to find out, maybe she will confront him and he decides he has to do something to her too. I think through a few possibilities and decide that it is not safe enough. "But it... isn't what it looks like..."

She interrupts me in mid-sentence. "Fiddlesticks. I've seen Jyuuken hits before, and the set used on you has been dead-serious. When Neji-kun brought you here, you were hardly breathing." It's as if she has decided that it is faster to just tell me the things she was suspecting I might tell her. "As far as I know the goings-on of Hyuuga clan, there aren't many people there who would be either cold or determined enough to beat their way through the heir of the head family like that. And the other one is bedridden. Or was?" The stare she fixes me is analytical enough to put the Hyuuga air of insight to shame. How long has she been thinking about this? If it is that obvious, will the clan get into trouble from the outside as well as inside?

Then something she said earlier hits home, and my eyes widen in amazement. "...Neji brought me here?"

She nods. "That he did."

New and strange possibilities light up for a moment: could it be that he failed, had to hide me and flee? But why would he risk coming here afterwards? He should be very far away by now to make sure never to run into a Hyuuga clan member again.

"Any news from the clan?" She is a hermit, but she would hear of important things...

"I was wondering what you'd have to tell me, dear." Does this mean the news is not out yet or nothing has happened? "But I can tell you as much: he didn't seem too nervous, that Neji-kun. But then he seems the kind of boy who seldom loses his nerve."

I think that if Neji ever was a "boy", he must have gotten over it around the age of four, when they - we - put that seal on his forehead. "I doubt my family is alive, but... I do not understand why he would bring me here. By all rights I should have stayed dead." Why add complications to his plan? It worked well enough this far. I cannot understand what he expects to benefit from me being alive. And judging by how he said he did kill me, he wasn't aiming for this to start with. What made him change his mind?

She all but tsks at me. A death wish is almost taboo among healers. I remember that I should not alienate her, as I need to get out. I change the subject. "I must go. I cannot just lie here and wait." I try to get up, but my body is still totally uncooperative. Trying to move makes me dizzy.

"Now there, you're not in any shape to get out of bed, let alone take a trip home." She places a completely unnecessary restraining hand on my shoulder, looking shrewd. "But, I have been paying attention to gossip lately. The Hyuuga clan elders are meeting a few days from now, relatively soon after the previous meeting but to outward appearances it is all over routine matters." She glances over her shoulder conspiratorially and continues. "It just so happens that it's the day when I get supplies from the village. If you still feel like going home then, I can get you a ride from the old friend who brings things up here for me."

I stare at the healer, baffled at the sudden opening of possibilities. She hastily adds, "Mind you that I promised Neji-kun to keep you safe here." She rolls her eyes at me. "I just happen to see that if I try to keep you here, you'll sneak out to walk over by yourself instead and probably end up dead before ever arriving."

I almost manage a self-ironic smile at the remark. She puts her hands to her hips and peers at me. "In return, I want you to swear by your poor, strained heart that you are not going there to try to attack your cousin."

She does not need to tell me it would be a doomed attempt; I would be dead long before I could bring myself to mould chakra in this shape, even if all the pores in my body were not burned. In theory, in a month or so I might manage something very simple, but might never be able to command half the power I did before. In addition, I am not feeling vengeful enough to be stupid. The healer has deserved some peace of mind.

"I swear I'll not raise a hand against him." In fact, my inability to raise a hand against much anything at the moment makes me want to either chuckle or weep. I am rather tired already by now, however, and just drift back to sleep instead.

The few days pass quickly as I spend most of my time floating between sleep and waking. Through the healer's care I can feel some strength returning to my limbs, enough to move them and even stand up awkwardly. One morning as I take a few tentative steps, the healer comes to tell me her friend has arrived. She asks me one more time if I am sure I want to go. I am.

The healer and the old man who brings her supplies help me to his now-empty cart, and we take off. I spend the journey meditating on what is to come and finalizing my plan of approach. I am wearing a cloak with a hood covering my head to avoid unnecessary questions on the way. It also protects my tired eyes from the bright sunlight.

When we arrive outside the Hyuuga estate, I step out of the cart and slowly walk over to the meeting hall, occasionally pausing to support myself against the wall. No one challenges me on the way. I hear Neji's voice, he is apparently in the middle of questioning.

On the door, the guard lets me pass as I surprise him wordless by showing my face. I gather my strength and walk steadily to stand beside Neji. The elders who have gathered stare at me; someone gasps audibly.

I know my face must be looking somewhat pale, but the rest of my body is hidden under the cloak. It should spare the audience from further discomfort unless they actively decide to look closer.

I have hardly spoken up to a single one of the elders, never mind addressing all of them at once. However, after standing my ground against Neji to the end, I feel a whole new kind of braveness growing inside me. My glance around the roomful of baffled elders and at Neji confirms the topic of the meeting for me. I announce myself according to the tradition, and demand a say, which I am of course granted.

As the murmurs die down, I turn to Neji, who has had time to compose himself and hide his own surprise behind a mask of innocent confusion imitating that of the rest of the room. From this close, I can almost hear his mind frantically calculating different solutions to whatever I would throw at him.

I address the hall, and keep my face impassive just to keep Neji beside me confused just a moment longer. "The head family is in dire danger of discontinuation, and it threatens the strength of the Hyuuga clan. In response, I have decided to remove a problem fate set on the way of our clan years ago."

I am getting stares with confusion and even fear mixed in them. I decide I have had my share of drama for a lifetime. I turn to Neji. "Neji onii-san, let us join together what was separated by freak chance; adopt me as your true sister, and take my father's place as the head of the clan." Neji's eyes widen. I suspect he did not expect anything like this. "Your skill should clearly show to anyone that there has been no other in this family to be blessed with as thick Hyuuga blood."

Neji finally moves his gaze to the elders, analyzes the situation and makes the easy decision. He accepts and, without too long a pause, continues to recite the traditional promise my father and his father before him made when they took over the rule of the house. He must have been prepared for all outcomes.

It is settled. The branch family heads are probably acutely aware that the secret of the cursed seal and its activation would die with me. It is rather clear that they had not decided yet whether it would be a bad or good outcome, however. They approve, and their eyes look at me brightly as stars. The stars start to move in circles, and all of a sudden I notice I am falling backwards.

Neji catches my fall quickly and quietly, and keeps me on my feet. During the moment of sudden support I love him so strongly that my heart comes close to bursting. He puts my arm around his shoulder as if simply strengthening his words of accepting me as a sister, and starts to support me out. I am glad, in passing, that he helps me walk out on my own feet instead of just lifting me. It is all about appearances, after all.

It is a long walk out all the same. When we get out of the door, I really need to sit down. I am already coughing blood, and between gasps of air glibly point out to my ever serious cousin, "I think I solved both our problems, onii-san."

"Hmmh." He is staring in the distance, maybe still wondering what was just achieved a moment ago. I get worried when he frowns for a moment, but it passes soon enough. "You should focus on getting back on your feet." I wonder idly if he thinks I am planning make a habit of wandering around while choking on pieces of my own lungs. I am just about to ensure him I am not, but the memory of how to speak seems to have gone somewhere. When I try to look for it, the world goes dark once more.

oOOo

Neji glances around and picks up his cousin, on the same yard where she fell a few days before. This time he carries her to the house of the head family. He flinches slightly when crossing the doorstep to the bedrooms, but notices that the signs of struggle have been meticulously cleared. He lays the unconscious girl on her bed and leaves to fetch the town healer to see to her injuries.

For the next few days, Hinata remains unconscious. Neji stalks around in the house, still not quite belonging under the roof of his late nemesis. A young branch family girl tends to Hinata, and Neji's prowling remains unseen. To all appearances, Hinata is alone in her recovering. Her obvious weakness is bound to bring out the wolf in her relatives, and Neji does not plan to be standing as the first obstacle on their path to freedom from the head family.

But unless he learns the cursed seal technique from Hinata, he will never be quite free from the seal himself. It is dawning on him that the best way out would have to be to know everything about the technique. Who knows, he might maybe learn how to reverse the sealing or at least separate from it the part that leaves the branch families in helpless bondage under the whim of the head family.

He is not completely certain what to make of Hinata. He never thought of her as much else than the head family heir that he had to beat on his way to becoming better than her father, and better than everyone else. Hinata does not seem to be capable of scheming; she is the dull grey, eternally ignored girl who only ever wanted someone to acknowledge her.

She has always been overshadowed in skill by Neji, and close to being disowned by her father for showing so much less confidence or ambition than her younger sister. Her mother had failed to warm her husband's heart to their eldest child as well. The rest of the clan mostly ignored her as something rather uninteresting. When she did draw attention, it made her frightened and infinitely self-conscious, and usually led to nothing good. Nevertheless, she never could stop trying to attract even a bit of positive attention. She trained hard, but none of her achievements seemed to be good enough.

But yet he remains somewhat unnerved by the thought of Hinata recovering and one day being able to draw on her powers again. That day she will become capable of bringing the entire clan down through her control over the cursed seal. According to the healer, it would take weeks at least, and she might never fully recover. On the other hand, stranger things have happened. Some of them already did, and landed him as a recognized member of the newly extended head family.

Despite his doubts, he refuses to let others make the decision for him by getting rid of Hinata, so he keeps an eye on the shadows in the house of the head family. One night, his suspicions are proven correct. When the moon is shadowed by clouds, a shape, hidden by the darkness so as to be almost invisible, enters the room through the window. The black of the night is as good as daylight to the Byakugan's vision, however. He can read innumerable things in the intruder's movements, including an assumption of stalking easy prey. Determined to make the cold reality known to the would-be assassin in a quick and uncompromising way, he steps between the man and the window and lets him know he is not alone:

"Guests always bring joy to the house, but they receive warmer welcome in the daytime."

The intruder turns in surprise, but his fate is already sealed.

oOOo

After a few days of lying down and clearing my head, I think I understand what caused Neji's frown back on the yard. He is right to suspect that the problems had only barely started when I got back.

When I left the healer's house to come make a stand in the council in Neji's support, I realized on some level that it might not be the safest thing to do. Not only because I could barely walk, but because I was the last living member of the head family. This means that I am the only thing standing between the branch family members' freedom from ever being threatened by our cursed seal again.

Unlike my father towards the end, I do not think I was actively hated as a head family member, nor was I very frightening in comparison to more prominent members of my family. But as I lie helpless and alone in the house of the head family, it simply is too opportune a moment to waste on scruples or second thoughts. As I wake one night to someone speaking in the room, I am not entirely surprised. The message makes no sense to me, however, or maybe I have missed something important from its beginning.

I turn my head an try to see where the voice came from, but the room is dark and my vision blurred. I try to call forth the Byakugan as a reflex, but only succeed in summoning a throbbing ache in my head. I hear some movement close by, then feel a familiar flow of chakra in the air. Even though there seems to be an ocean of feathers in between me and and the chakra source, muffling the sensation, I could recognize Neji's preparation for Jyuuken hand-to-hand combat anywhere. I hear a light thud followed by another, louder one, as a body falls heavily on the floor.

Not knowing what to expect, I can only settle for whatever my strange fate has to offer this time. A candle is lit, and I can see shapes in the room again. Neji holds the candle, which I guess is a good sign. I look around to find a collapsed heap close to the window. He follows my gaze and moves the candle towards the unmoving body.

"A cheap assassin. Not terribly skilled either." He thus dismisses the fact that he happened to be in my room, and just at the right time to stop me from being killed in my sleep. All by a remark that deems such a lacklustre attempt on my life would be just as likely to fail all by itself. But nevertheless, I am infinitely grateful that it is not actually a branch family member lying in a heap in the corner. The fact that the assassin was not of the more expensive and deadly sort hired to take down people more apt in their own defence is also soothing - the branch families are at least not organized against me, or they would have done this properly from the start. One small family would not be able to gather the money for much more than a usual hired knife.

Neji blows the candle out and I close my useless eyes again. Considering that I have just barely escaped death, I feel unusually calm. I know Neji looks after me; I have little to fear. I let myself drift back to sleep.

oOOo

Neji watches Hinata as her breathing changes to indicate she has fallen asleep. He sees in the darkness easily with Byakugan, and places the candle back on the table. He picks up the body of the assassin next, and checks the perimeter by extending his vision to full range, where it can reach through walls many paces in all directions to detect signs of life. Since he detects no one waiting in the area, he climbs out through the window with the body.

After a quick disposal of the assassin, Neji returns to the house of the head family through the back door. The moon has come out, and lights the place eerily. Neji releases the Byakugan to restore his normal vision; he can see around well enough without help now.

As he walks past the bedroom of his late uncle, Hinata's father, Neji inadvertently glances in. The pale moonlight plays tricks to the eye; the dancing shadows suddenly make Neji see himself at the foot of the bed, knife in hand. He looks away, but while his rational mind recognizes the scene as mere shadows of the mind, the memory of the bloody night is reawakened by the sight.

Taking Hinata to the healer had allowed him to push back the thought of what he had just done, until it simply was not there. In the dark, moonlit house, the memory seems to have decided it has waited enough.

For a moment, Neji can feel the ghosts of the house pressing on him, roaring for revenge. Even Hinata's mother seems to join the rest of the family in blaming him for her death, just like her husband eventually did.

Neji's legs finally give out under him as his own father suddenly appears in the barrage, telling him again to live on, to protect the head family. The apparition looks crestfallen at Neji's ultimate failure, his betrayal of shared blood. Neji sits down and raises his hands to his temples. Instead of screaming to cover the noises in his balking mind, he closes his eyes and focuses on them: he turns the Hyuuga eyes of insight inwards and to the ghosts. He has always made it his point to know his own weaknesses well; to have no secrets from himself. Through the clarity of that piercing honesty, he can also see through the ghosts and lay them to rest. What is done is done, and there is no use for second-guessing after the fact.

He has decided long ago to become strong enough to not lose to anyone. That includes not losing to himself.

After a while, his hands still shake slightly, but he gets back to his feet. He returns to glance at the bed of Hiashi-sama, and the shadows no longer stir anything that would overwhelm him. He decides to spend the rest of his night watch in the room which now seems completely harmless.

oOOo

After a few more days of recuperation, I am already starting to tire of lying down. I also feel a tingling in my body, and know that some of my power might return soon. When the young girl looking after me has left for the day, I call to Neji.

"We should talk, onii-san." He nods solemnly. For a while, neither of us says anything more. We both know what it is about; he will have seen the power slowly start to flow through my body again even before I can feel it. I recall his remark from before, about cutting off my hands to protect himself if need be. It would look dreadful if he were to do it now, when we are surrounded by our clan members, but he might not let that stop himself. I try to push the gloomy thoughts back.

As the ominous silence continues, I shift uneasily. "I know you do not have much use for oaths or promises, but for what it's worth, I have no reason - and even less intention - to attack you or the rest of the clan through the cursed seal."

He looks at me quietly, and I meet his gaze. I wonder if he would trust his insight enough to believe me if I can just believe myself strongly enough. After some more silence, he closes his eyes and nods. I feel a bit giddy, and realize I have been holding my breath again. I keep sinking into those hypnotic eyes of his, the way they push me to try to spot the slightest hint of what goes through his mind, of what kind of judgement he must be passing on me. He has always been the hardest one to read. Few other people have lived their entire lives amongst a clanful of all-seeing eyes, and he is by far the member who has been drawing the most attention due to his skill and later my father's reactions. He has had all the practice one could ever wish for in keeping his thoughts to himself.

He breaks the silence, yanking me from my musings. "I want you to teach me everything you know about the cursed seal."

I clench my teeth together. A part of me expected this, but a larger part wanted to ignore the possibility just as badly. The truth is, since he cannot get rid of the seal on himself, putting a seal on me as well would provide at least some kind of balance of terror. But I am not sure if I would just prefer the sealing technique to die out with me; the tradition is too cruel, too wrong to continue. Living weapons or not, Hyuuga members deserve to live their lives free of the oppression of the head family.

Neji notices my anxiety. "I want to change the tradition, but for that, I need to know how the seal works." I am not sure whether to feel reassured yet; he does not say what way he intends to change it. But as I think about the Neji I've known since I was a child, I have to admit I cannot find any good reason to not trust him with the clan's future. He might seem calculative or cold, and there has been a time when he was downright bitter about his father's death, but he has no evil streak in him.

I make up my mind and nod. "I will have to be able to form some releasing seals for us to get to the old scrolls unharmed. It should not take many days." He seems to accept the situation.

A few days passes quickly. As I start to trust my legs again, I release my young nurse, who seems relieved to get to do something else than look after me already. While I do not mind taking over running my own life, my main motivation is to have the house empty of outsiders once it is time to take Neji to the scrolls.

The first morning when I wake up feeling capable of the relatively straightforward opening ritual, I find Neji at my bedside, ready to go. Again, he must have been able to follow the progress of my healing more closely than I. He has an air of intensity around him, and I get a slightly disturbing feeling that he is watching my every move.

We head over to an out-of-the-way trapdoor, and I rehearse the seals in my mind. Neji stands right behind me, his Byakugan focused, and I hesitate for a moment. I glance back at him, almost stepping on his toes right behind me. I cannot name any particular sign that would reveal what he is thinking, but I have a sudden revelation of a possible motivation nevertheless: he is just close enough to get a quick, debilitating hit in if he recognizes me forming the seal to kill him instead of opening the trapdoor. After all, by being able to form seals of any sort, I have become a potentially dangerous opponent again.

I decide to not give him any additional cause to worry, and let him know what to expect with the opening ritual. He does not move away, but I feel that some of the tension is released.

Forming the door-opening seals takes great care and is somewhat painful as well, but it has the desired effect: the warding on the trapdoor and the surrounding floor is removed, and we can climb down. After we enter, Neji closes the now harmless trapdoor above us and latches it up. I pick the scrolls up from a cabinet and set them on a single table in the middle of the small room.

I notice that Neji is still looking at me strangely, and I feel a confused blush creeping up.

He asks, "Is this it? I can now come and go to read the scrolls until I am finished with them?"

I am somewhat baffled at the question, but nod. There is now nothing special about the room. The warding and the underground location makes it rather well-protected, and it is not too easy to enter through anything but the trapdoor. The cursed seal is not that dangerous a secret; anyone from the head branch would be quite capable of protecting themselves against any side branch members actually trying to imprint the seal on them. "The room is as you see it, and the scrolls themselves are just normal scrolls."

He nods in acknowledgement. "I hope, then, that you understand why I must do this." He suddenly stands right in front of me, his Byakugan eyes fixed on my arms. Before I even realize what is going on, he jabs my arms repeatedly with his fingertips, searing my chakra points all over again. I shudder at the sudden pain, pull away from him and reflexively try to protect my injured arms with the rest of my body by doubling over. As I stagger back, trying to clear the fog of horror from my mind, I see him taking out something from a pouch he is carrying. I almost unconsciously retreat further.

When I reach the trapdoor, I realize that my arms hurt too much to open it. I let out a panicked whimper when Neji steps through the meagre distance between us. He grabs my arm by the wrist. I think my legs might give out; I close my eyes, already fully engulfed by the return of the fears that haunted me at the healer's house. Has he finally decided to finish what he started? Did he only want the information about the seal and how to activate it in order to control the rest of the clan? I cannot think straight, panic has taken over me already.

I feel something cool against my arm and open my eyes to brave a look. Neji is tending to my arms, binding them up with the same efficiency he mauled them. I stare at the procedure in bewilderment, and he pauses after the first packaged arm when he notices my look.

"I'm sorry, Hinata-sama, but I could not see another way to make sure I could focus on the scrolls." He adds the full honorific without even thinking about it; I later realize that it must have been an indication of just how uneasy his action made him. "I want to trust you, but the risk is too great for me to accept. I know you have good reason to have hesitated when I asked for this information, and any second thoughts might sooner or later prove strong enough to push you into stopping me." Then he goes on to bandage my other arm.

I open my mouth to protest, but then I realize that I understand his reasoning. Even with the Byakugan, he cannot see reliably just how strongly I am opposed to using the seal against him, and where the cost for me is a few weeks more of convalescence, a miscalculation in the other direction could cost him his life, and possibly have long-lasting effects on the clan one way or the other. I feel somewhat sad that he could not just trust my word, but after everything my family has done to him and his father, I suspect even I would have trouble trusting myself.

The pain in my arms turns into a mild throbbing only as the cooling ointment under the bandages begins to take effect. I find myself more in control of my thoughts again, but start to feel my legs shaking as an after-effect of the panic. I raise my tended arm slightly to touch his. When he looks up from his finished work, I work up a reassuring smile, and even futilely hope that he does not notice the tears of relief misting my eyes, so he would not needlessly worry about me.

Neji breaks his calm pose and suddenly clasps me to him fiercely. "I will not rest before I find a way to stop this madness, I swear." His voice is choked; I have never seen him this shaken, this... human. I hug him back so empathetically that my bandaged arms protest.

oOOo

The two cousins, or siblings, get to work on the scrolls. Hinata, who now projects an air of limitless serenity, explains to Neji what she has been taught about the seal. She admits to not having any real memory of it being made, however, as she was too frightened by the oppressive atmosphere of the day when Neji was bound to the chains of tradition. Neji remembers details of the situation all too well, but not much that is useful.

Luckily, the scrolls document everything there is to know about the sealing technique and its activation. Neji has always wondered if the cursed seal would open everyone in branch families to an attack from the outside if knowledge of it were to leak out, and now his suspicions are finally proven incorrect. The activation seal is closely bound to the Byakugan ability itself, and it would not be possible for anyone to use it but a clan member with the hereditary power.

Neji and Hinata spend a couple of hours studying the scrolls. When Hinata starts to look fatigued, Neji helps her up through the trapdoor. She promises to bring him something to eat, and he accepts the offer. He latches the trapdoor again after she is gone, and continues his study.

Not too long later, there is a knock on the trapdoor. Hinata has somehow managed to prepare a meal despite how her hands must ache, and has brought a full plate for him. He boggles at the feat; while he did his best to be very precise this time, and only burn the chakra points of her arms, it simply could not be done without damaging skin and muscle as well. He can only imagine the pain Hinata must have endured to use her arms at this time.

Neji finds in himself a new-found respect for the girl who would never complain out of fear of bothering someone. The thought urges him to find a solution to the unbearable situation fast, and he hastily returns to his work.

oOOo

As I hear Neji latch the trapdoor again, I quietly let out a pained sigh. My arms are burning from the simple task of carrying the plate, but they calm down relatively soon after I let them be again. The ointment Neji used to tend to my injuries was powerful; I checked our medicine storage, and found he had taken the best salves for the task. While I'm certain that between us two, I have always been the one that was more interested in healing, I feel somewhat proud that he would know to appreciate good medicine.

I leave most of the cleaning up for later, and rest for a while. Later in the evening, I feel slightly better and wander around the house. Neji appears to still be in the scroll room, so I decide not to disturb him. The scrolls make me uneasy, and he should be more than capable of learning anything there is to learn about them without me getting in the way. My task is done, and the way Neji actually flinched when he realized I had carried a plate to him, I figure my presence might end up distracting him.

I meditate on Neji's recent show of human traits that night before I fall asleep. It is hard to think of him as simply a person; he seems more like a force of nature, too distant to fully understand. I wonder if I should be worried or relieved for seeing this other side of him; on one hand, his mysteriousness has been a constant, one of the few constants in my life lately. If he is not infallible, what is?

On the other hand, it makes me remember the way I saw him smile once, as a child. There have been times when I have doubted my own memory of it, but it is easy to believe after what happened today. Somewhere inside him, that boy must still live. I try to imagine the pain and betrayal that could have changed that smiling boy into the eternally solemn young man who does not falter for a moment in his plan to clear away the people threatening his life; my stomach knots from the attempt.

I sleep restlessly that night.

oOOo

Neji paces around the small room. The scrolls document everything about the cursed seal, and the inevitable conclusion is driving him mad: there is no way to separate the seal which protects the Hyuuga bloodline ability from being transferred to people not from the clan, from the curse which enslaves the branch family. The only solution to the threat to his life seems to either burn a similar seal on Hinata, or make sure she never forms seals again; there is nothing that he can do to change the future of the clan for the better.

The cursed seal binds the Byakugan, and simultaneously opens a subtle weakness in the carrier. Apparently, after the seal had been discovered and brought to use for clan members, a brilliant but less than honourable Hyuuga descendant soon found a way to use the weakness to cause horrible pains in the victim. The possibility of killing someone through the cursed seal was demonstrated soon later; one family declared themselves as heads of the clan after dealing away with any who opposed them, and decided that they would not accept the seal. The other branches of the clan were then bound to protecting the members of this family, to make sure that the clan power could never be stolen.

There is no way to close the weakness and to protect people carrying the seal from assault by another clan member who knows how to activate it. Neji himself will never be completely safe from branch family members, should they be allowed to the scrolls. He tries not to think of the threat Hinata poses; he knows something must be done, but simply burning the seal on her seems such a useless insult when he could still in theory be surprised and brought down before he could react.

He spends the night, sleepless, trying to see through the scrolls to find some loophole. The ghosts of past generations seem to mock his futile attempt. How be it that the genius of the clan, unsurpassed in his age group and by few people in the entire village, would be left so utterly humbled by an age-old technique.

He has lost all sense of time already, when there is a knock again on the trapdoor. Hinata is bringing him more food, and he realizes that he forgot all about the first plateful already. He accepts the new offering, slightly embarrassed. Hinata notices the untouched food as well. She asks Neji to help her down, and he complies.

For a moment, she just looks at him as if trying to read his thoughts. He resignedly explains that he has not made any real progress towards a solution. He suddenly feels horribly tired. How long would he be able to go on abusing this young woman just to protect his own hide? Particularly when she seems all too willing to suffer his whim without complaint. He lets out an involuntary sigh and kneels down to the scrolls again, to make sure once more that there is nothing he has missed.

His concentration is dispersed when Hinata's arms appear in his view, and wrap around him. He manages to not tense up at the sudden touch; he is not used to it and it makes him uneasy, but he is determined not to show it.

Hinata seems to have read his doubts right off his face, which makes him slightly irritated at himself, for not managing to keep up his usual composure lately. She just hugs his back and says the strangest thing:

"It's alright, onii-san. I would give anything to share some of your pain."

As he turns to look at her, she backs off before his gaze but continues nevertheless: "The cursed seal... I always thought it should have been me in your stead, and it made it hard to even look you in the eye. I did not know whether to cheer you on or commiserate, but I did see you would not accept anyone's pity."

He can only stare at Hinata, boggled at the outburst. Something about it is nagging him, but he cannot quite figure out what exactly. Hinata blushes, then seems to gather up a bit more courage to give her final statement: "So, what I wanted to say is, um, I won't hate you, no matter what you decide to do. As long as it lightens your burden just a little bit." She fidgets, then settles down, staring at the floor.

Neji struggles with himself for a moment, then extends a hand to Hinata. He ponders if he would be willing to make a similar offer based on bad conscience alone, and dismisses it as highly unlikely. Hinata's characteristic feature, and her main problem, is that she thinks so much and in such complex patterns that she stumbles all over them. Her mind is like a flock of sparrows alight at the first sign of danger; her thoughts burst out in all directions, and only after a while decide to return to their perch, after a mystifying pattern of seemingly random movement.

Hinata's awkwardness, then, seems mainly to be a result of trying to avoid all possible negative outcomes simultaneously, and falling directlyinto one as a result. To make things worse, her confidence seems to drop at each failed attempt, while most people go through life like a storm wind through paper walls, and never feel bad about it. For a moment, Neji feels an unprecedented kinship with his strange cousin.

He looks for some words to offer to her in exchange, but finds them all lacking. Then a thought that seemed already lost strikes him hard enough to make his eyes widen. He finally found out what was nagging him about Hinata's words. Sharing pain. A solution he had not come to think of was just waiting for him to pick it up.

He has been so bent on extracting the weakness-inducing effect of the cursed seal that he never got to thinking about alternatives. If the person activating the seal were to suffer the same pain, they would not be able to terrorize the rest of the clan through it. The activation seal is directed towards its target only, so it fails to activate the attacker's own seal. Unless... unless the seal on the target were modified so that it returned the activation in kind. It would not provide protection, but the certainty of being struck back would work almost as well.

He shuffles through the scrolls to check his theory, but he already knows what the exact modification should be. When he moments later remembers that Hinata is staring at him confusedly, he turns to her and says, "It is all about sharing pain. It is solved!" She needs no further explanation; her eyes widen at the revelation.

Some dark clouds gather on an otherwise clear blue sky, when Neji remembers that this does not solve the problem that Hinata would also need the modified seal for the protection to work. He is no longer sure if he can ask her for another sacrifice.

Hinata is considerably less troubled from landing into the same conclusion. "Once everyone has the seal, not even the head family members can be used to steal the Byakugan. It will be as it was originally intended, protecting the clan power."

Neji recalls that this asymmetry was also what lead to his father sacrificing himself; a head family member's corpse could reveal something critical about the Byakugan, while a sealed branch family member would give nothing away. He commends Hinata silently for grasping the main meaning of the solution immediately; she does think like a head of the clan.

Hinata's enthusiasm seem to hold no bounds. "We must let the clan elders know, and arrange for my sealing as soon as possible. We should also start modifying everyone's seal to make them reflecting as well." She catches herself, and stumbles over a chain of thought again. Cheeks burning, she finishes, "Um... I would like you to be the one to... burn the seal on me, if that's alright with you."

Neji, baffled, almost starts to protest. But then he decides he does not really need to understand Hinata's reasoning to grant her whatever she asks. He nods in affirmation.


End file.
